A Case of Doubtful Death

A Frances Doughty mystery

A few months have passed since the events of The Daughters of Gentlemen, and 20 year old Frances is more established in Bayswater as a lady detective valued for her discretion. Alice Palmer asks Frances to find her brother Henry who went missing one foggy night on his way home from work. Henry is an assistant at Dr Mackenzie’s Lifehouse on the edge of Kensal Green Cemetery.

A very unusual mortuary, the Lifehouse is designed to reassure its patrons that they need never fear being buried alive, since it stores corpses until they begin to decompose and are undeniably beyond revival when eventually buried. When Dr Mackenzie dies suddenly Palmer is sent to report the news but after doing so, vanishes without trace.

Has he absconded, met with an accident, or was he kidnapped or murdered? And what guilty secrets has Dr Mackenzie been hiding? In the world of the Victorian dead – decay, burials, exhumations and post mortems will follow, and Frances’ investigations will take her deep into the catacombs.

A Case of Doubtful Death is the third book in the Frances Doughty Mystery series